Angel on horseback

By REBECCA BARRY

The reception isn't brilliant but that's not surprising. When you're one of McLeod's Daughters, interviews aren't conducted in city cafes but by phone from the Australian TV drama's fictional cattle farm. The illusion of the permanently scorching "Outback" property is just that - not only is Drovers Run a dusty, 10-minute drive from Adelaide, actress Rachael Carpani is so cold today she's wearing layers of thermals under her costume.

"I'm in a permanently bad mood during winter so this is just torture," she says unconvincingly. But there have been more ups than downs playing the precocious Jodi Fountain for the past three years.

When McLeod's Daughters first aired in Australia, Carpani was a relatively unknown bit-part actress studying for an arts, media and cultural studies degree. Now, with the show known as "Charlie's Angels on horseback" screening in more than 100 countries and an average Aussie audience of 1.5 million tuning in weekly, she's a celebrity - the other day she received her first piece of fan mail from Bulgaria.

Even so, when the last series wrapped, actresses Lisa Chappell (Claire) and Jessica Napier (Becky) moved on to literally greener pastures, and Carpani found herself pondering if she'd risk being typecast if she didn't go herself.

"The cast and the crew become one big family so it is really sad when one of them leaves, especially Jess because we lived together pretty much for the duration of the first three series.

"Of course it crosses your mind and you do get those doubts, you know, 'God, can I do something else?' But when it's finished it's finished and people move on."

She has since become good buddies with her new flatmate, McLeod's Kiwi recruit, Michala Banas (Kate Manfredi), and says the new blood, also including Simmone Jade Mackinnon (Stevie Hall), has made a refreshing impact on the show.

Carpani's character, too, has come a long way since the first series. Once Meg's spoiled teenage daughter whose self-centred ambitions to become rich and famous often got in the way of her farm chores, Jodi has since married, run away and matured into a feisty yet relatively responsible young adult.

"Thank goodness! I was worried she was going to stay like that forever. I really was. I was going, 'Oh my goodness, she's complaining again!' They'd have conversations on the farm and it would always end with Jodi going, 'Do I have to? Can't someone else do it?' But the script-writers were really lovely, they gave her a lot of scope to grow."

On paper at least, she and her character have led parallel lives. Carpani grew up half an hour out of Sydney, on a 2ha block with a few chickens, where she remembers "running around without any shoes on, riding motorbikes and stuff".

Like Jodi, she yearned for the city, and was relieved when she moved to North Sydney with her Australian mother and Italian father. Her goal was to take on small acting roles while completing her degree, and when her parents moved to the United States she thought she would join them after her studies.

But as Carpani puts it, "every time I make plans, they seem to go out of the window," and before she knew it she'd signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with McLeod's and shifted to Adelaide.

"I was in no way, shape or form a country girl," she says. "I knew nothing about farming methods, I had never been on a horse in my life, even though I told them in the auditions that I had, as you do in auditions. Can you leapfrog that mountain? Absolutely! I think I'd been on a pony at a fair when I was four.

"I didn't even know how to drive a manual car and I got down here and found all the cars on set were manual. So I was in for a bit of a rude shock."

The first two weeks were spent in intensive training, learning to ride, shear sheep and drive tractors. But while life on Drovers Run proved to be a raging success, the day-to-day realities of living in Adelaide were beginning to sink in.

"I didn't have my friends here, I didn't have my family here, I didn't know anyone," she says.

"When you're in your comfort zone, you know you can go to your favourite coffee shop around the corner or to your favourite store. I didn't really have a great time during the first series off-set. Trying to establish a life in a new State is kind of hard."

These days, it's a different story. She doesn't go to Sydney much because Adelaide feels like home. She sees herself still in the job a year from now, possibly longer. Occasionally she even finds herself slipping into Jodi-mode, taking on some of her mannerisms and babbling when she gets nervous.

"But I'm a lot more cautious and think before I leap," she says. "Jodi tends to just kind of let what's in her head come out of her mouth without really thinking about it. I like the way she stumbles through life."